


Penumbra

by Konfessor2U



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brighton - Freeform, Brighton Pride, Deaf Character, Deaf Harry Potter, Gay Pride, Harry-centric, M/M, switching POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Konfessor2U/pseuds/Konfessor2U
Summary: Harry leaves the Wizarding world behind him after losing his hearing in the Battle of Hogwarts. He is now living a wonderful and gay life in Brighton.Penumbra- (/pəˈnəmbrə/) noun- 1. the lighter, outer region of a shadow cast by an opaque object; 2. the less dark outer part of a sunspot, surrounding the dark core
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83





	1. Tinnitus

As Harry watched Voldemort crumble to dust, the ringing in his ears slowly turned into a dull roar. The high pitched ringing had started when the bright white of King’s Cross gave way to the blackness of the Dark Forest. In its place was a muted wall of sound. Just noise, but quiet. It sounded both too loud and far, far away at the same time.

The war was over, finally over. He wasn’t excited or happy. So many people had died. If anything, he felt empty inside, like part of him never came back from the Dark Forest. He felt utterly exhausted.

He startled when someone hugged him from behind but relaxed a little when his friends’ smiling faces came into view. They were all talking, he could see their mouths moving and hands clapping, but the wall of noise was the same as before.

"What?" He twisted a finger into his ear trying to see if it would help to hear their voices. It didn’t. He was really starting to freak out. Harry couldn't tell the difference between the voices and the roar of cheering and clapping. "I... What?" He took his glasses off and shook his head, hoping to clear it. If felt like he had cotton wool stuffed into his ears, and all of his friends were talking and cheering in another room, like a solid wall stood between them.

Hermione was the only one to notice that he was off, everyone else was celebrating. They had every right to, he figured. The war wasn’t easy on any of them. He put his glasses back on, turned away from the crowd and headed towards the bridge. He just needed to get off Hogwarts grounds and he could disapparate. She caught up with him halfway across grabbing his arm. He recognized his name on her lips but he couldn’t make sense of anything else. She looked worried. Harry didn’t want to worry her, he was tired of being the center of everyone’s attention, gossip, and worries. He cleared his throat and tried his voice for the first time since challenging Tom Riddle at the top of the tower.

“Hermione, I can’t hear what you are saying. I can’t even hear myself talking right now. Everything is too busy, too loud.” Harry made an exaggerated gesture at his ears with both hands. She stepped back from him, looking shocked and he briefly wondered if he was yelling at her. He put a hand to his throat to feel the vibrations. “Please. I need to go.” He didn’t feel like he was yelling, but he couldn’t tell. Hermione sobbed but nodded and hugged him fiercely.

She didn’t appear to say anything more to him and he was thankful that she understood he couldn’t hear her, despite not being able to explain it. “Thank you, ‘Mione. I'll owl when I can.” She nodded again, wiping the tears from her dirty face.

Harry turned to continue walking across the bridge. The wall of sound was quieter as he walked away from the only home he ever cared about. He knew the source of the sound was behind him and he knew it was his friends cheering and laughing, but it felt isolating. He didn’t know where he was going, but he decided that he would go south until he felt comfortable with how far he had gone.

Just before he stepped onto the grass on the far side he turned to wave at Hermione, Ron now at her side. They waved back.

Harry tucked Malfoy’s wand into his back pocket and walked back out onto the bridge gripping the Elder wand between his hands. The wood bent easily but it still took quite a bit of force before it broke. He wished he could have heard the snap of it. Harry watched silvery wisps of magic leak out into the wind before throwing the pieces off the edge and disapparating before he could think much about what he had just done.


	2. Idiopathic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With no diagnosis, Harry settles into muggle life in Brighton.

He had opted to go to a muggle hospital with the hope of not being identified. He silently thanked Hermione for teaching him the magical extension charm as he pulled his muggle wallet from the depths of his coat pocket and checked that his NHS card and ID were still there. In the wallet was also his muggle bank card and some cash, something Hermione urged them all to do since they started looking for horcruxes. Harry was lucky that he had most things he needed in the various pockets of his ratty jeans and coat.

After 48 hours of testing, an IV drip to rehydrate him, many fitful naps, and a rather underwhelming, nurse supervised shower to wash off the grime of the war, the doctors claimed that he was perfectly normal. Once he told the nurses that he couldn’t hear anything, and also didn’t know sign language, they wrote everything down in a notebook for him to read.

His ear canals and ear drums looked normal, all clear. The CT scan of his head showed normal inner ear bones, no fractures or infection. The MRI of his brain revealed that the nerves from his ear to his brain and his actual brain were all normal. Harry didn’t have to hear the conversation between the nurse and the ER doctor to know that they now thought he was faking it.

The emptiness he felt once Voldemort was defeated was slowly giving way to a heavier feeling. He recognized it as isolation. Harry let a few tears fall when the nurse left him alone with his clothes to dress again. Harry was discharged with the name of a recommended therapist in Brighton and a few internet links for “coping with your new disability” and “learning BSL” messily scribbled on a piece of paper. It was unsettling that he didn’t have a diagnosis.

There was a small chance that if he went to St. Mungo’s they would be able to cure him, or at least tell him what happened. It probably had something to do with being a horcrux, actually dying, and then coming back to life. Yeah, the muggle hospital didn’t know about that part of it, but he couldn’t risk going back to the wizarding world right now. It was too soon, and he couldn’t be the person they all needed him to be. Not right now.

Harry stood outside watching the traffic bustling around the hospital entrance. Buses, cars, taxis, families, babies. It all blended into one cottony fog in his head. What he _could_ hear was becoming more and more muted since the battle. He discovered while in hospital, if he was in a quiet room and someone started speaking, he knew to look at the person but could not make out what they were saying. Going from the relatively quiet hospital room to the busy street was overwhelming.

Harry stood glued to the pavement, hugging his jacket to himself tightly, hyper-focused on trying to make out the sound of an ambulance as it pulled up. It was chilly despite the fact that it was the middle of June, in Brighton. A man running down the walkway ran straight into him, knocking him to the ground. The man barely slowed to see if he was ok. Harry grumbled under his breath and stood up, straightening his glasses.

He brushed the gravel from his hands onto his jeans and started to wander up Eastern Road. By the evening he would need to find a place to stay. Luckily, cost would be no matter for him, as he had moved a considerable amount of his savings from Gringott’s to a muggle bank in case they needed it on the run. Hermione would probably say something like “I told you so”. He dipped into the first shop he came upon and bought a small pad of paper and pens so that people would be able to talk to him. Next, he ordered food at a noodle bar and ate 3 servings of teriyaki beef before he felt slightly better.

The pad of paper was working for him so far. He was disappointed and fucking pissed to find out that if he wrote down his own requests as if he couldn’t speak, people took him seriously and were generally more helpful. When he spoke out loud to them, they often made a face, rolled their eyes, or just completely ignored him. He wanted to scream at them, just because he didn't _sound_ deaf didn't mean that he wasn't. For the sake of making his day easier, he pretended he couldn't speak at all.

He stopped into a computer shop next and bought an old refurbished laptop and a cheap pay as you go flip mobile. They weren’t anything special, he just needed something to organize his life. He was familiar with Hermione’s computer so he figured it would just take a few days to get the hang of using muggle technology again. Harry handed over his card to the cashier and scanned the notice board next to the till. There was an ad hanging there for a room for let. He smiled and took one of the tear aways with information on it. Maybe things would work out alright for him in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I was born hearing and I am still hearing and not part of the deaf community but I do take interest in learning ASL (I'm living in America at the moment) and some BSL both to learn a new language and also to communicate with other ASL users.
> 
> I watch a lot of deaf Youtubers, my favourite is Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, she is awesome! She also has many informative and interesting videos on disability and also LGBTQ+ stuff. Her and her wife Claudia rock! A lot of what I learned about deafness is from her channel and if you watch her, you may recognize some of her explanations of what she can here and how she describes sounds.
> 
> Please don't come at me, but if I've gotten something wrong, please let me know. Thanks for reading!
> 
> When originally posted, the title was "New life with you"


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